


The Aftermath

by apollumithlibo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, honestly I'm nothing if I don't live up to my username, oooo this one's gonna hurt my dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-20 08:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20671961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollumithlibo/pseuds/apollumithlibo
Summary: In the aftermath of the decimation, Tony reflects on life without Peter Parker.





	The Aftermath

In the aftermath of the decimation, Tony didn’t know what to do. Time pulled at him and in all his world-weariness, he let it. After all, what was the point anymore? Thanos had won. Evil had triumphed good.

He’d lost the kid.

When Nebula had finally managed to get him on the Milano, he’d nearly had one of his infamous panic-attacks. This time though, there was no Pepper there to rub his back, whispering soothing words into his ear as her warm hands pulled him back towards reality. Back towards stable ground. Instead, he was across from a bald, blue-skinned woman who had a lifetime of pain that rivaled his own. Her black eyes revealed no sympathy, not that Tony was asking for any.

Neither of them had really been sure what to do, once the dust had settled, literally and figuratively. She’d moved close to him, from her spot by where Quill had been standing after facing off against her own father, movements slow and steady, like he would startle like a frightened animal if she moved too quickly. He supposed it wasn’t the worst approach someone had taken around him.

She’d reached out to touch his shoulder with a gentle, slender blue hand, but Tony had reared back as if she was going to strike him. She’d immediately withdrawn, any reminisce of warmth in her eyes evaporating as her face shuttered to blankness. Instead, she’d stepped back, crouched down a few feet away, and waited. For what, Tony wasn’t entirely sure. Him to grow up? Accept her help?

Tony didn’t know how to explain, without sounding like a mad man, that he didn’t want her to touch him because he still had Peter’s ashes coated on him. He wanted to preserve as much of the kid as possible, while he still could.

Oh _god_, the kid.

Watching him disappear with absolutely nothing Tony could do to stop it, only able to hold on to crumbling dust and try and not cry before the kid was fully gone, was not something he was liable to forget anytime soon. He knew it was going to haunt the back of his eyelids every time he closed them; his nightmares every time he fell asleep. He’d let the kid down. He’d promised to protect him, had taken him under his wing, tried to nurture the light, the goodness he’d seen in him. He’d made a promise to his aunt, after getting chewed out for about four hours once she’d found out, that he would keep the kid safe.

Now, he had to return home and look her in the eye and tell her he’d lost her son. If she wasn’t one of the ones who had been snapped as well. He doubted it would make him feel any better if she was gone.

“What’s your name?” Nebula’s quiet, rough voice broke through the swell of his thoughts, pulling him back to reality.

“Tony.” He’d looked up, meeting her unreadable black gaze.

“I don’t mean to disturb your grief, Tony. But I think we need to leave. Titan is no longer a stable planet and our battle didn’t exactly help that.” She looked apologetic, he thought. It was a little hard to tell with how blank her face got. He understood that though. Sometimes masks are easier to maintain; people expect the masks. They don’t expect the real emotions that lurk beneath. Tony nodded, sucking in a breath of air.

They needed to get back to earth. If they could do that, he could regroup with…whoever was left. God, he didn’t even want to think about the possibility that the remainder of the Avengers were gone. Before he could panic about the possibility of Pepper being dead, Nebula had already reached his side and was hesitantly waiting for him to accept her out-stretched arms. It was then that he remembered he was stabbed. It seemed like such a trivial thing, now. But he’d be lying if he said the sting of remembrance didn’t burn like a bitch. Nebula’s eyebrows were pinched together, as if she could feel his pain. He’s wasn’t really surprised, for a being who was half-machine, he had no doubt that she was in an immense amount of pain a fair good of the time. He knew what that felt like. He had his arc reactor for five years and the pain had never really gone away, even after getting it removed.

He grabbed her hand and Nebula pulled him to his feet, tucking her arm around his back, and pulling his other arm over her shoulders to keep him steady. He let her guide him towards the beat-up ship that he could only assume she had arrived on.

“I can drive it, but I think it’s going to need some work.” She’d told him, voice monotonous.

“I can probably help with that.” He offered no other explanation, but Nebula didn’t ask for one.

* * *

“Where to, Stark?” Nebula quirked an eyebrow at him as Tony had laboriously wiped the sweat from his forehead. Alien tech was advanced, but nothing he hadn’t been able to figure out with a little translation from Nebula.

“Do you know earth?” Nebula’s eyes had darkened at the question, but she merely nodded.

“Unfortunately, Terra is on my radar.” Tony didn’t want to make her go somewhere she didn’t want to, but it was the only place he really knew in this god forsaken universe. Space was foreign to him, and after the day he’d had, he’d really rather it stayed that way. He doesn’t answer her, and Nebula types in coordinates. Her brow had furrowed in concentration and finally she’d looked up.

“We’re probably only going to be able to make one jump, two at most.” She’d warned.

“How many do we need to get close?” He’d asked, lying back, flat on his back on the cool metal floor.

“Three at a minimum. More likely, four.”

“That sounds like a problem for one-or-maybe-two-jumps from now Tony and Nebula.” He’d announced, tucking his jacket under his head. Nebula had just watched him but after a moment, consented.

“Jumps aren’t easy for first-timers, Stark. Hold tight. Try not to move your wound too much.” Tony had eyed her and harrumphed, but proceeded to prop himself against a wall instead, hoping the support would be better. Nebula looked like she wanted to say something, but seemed to decide against it at the last moment. “Hold on.” And then they were jumping through space.

Tony had to say, it wasn’t exactly his favorite experience.

As bad as it probably was to say it, he missed the days before he’d become Iron Man sometimes. Life was a hell of lot easier back then, when he’d had the fog of alcohol to blur everything out. Then again, if he hadn’t become Iron Man a lot of good things wouldn’t have happened. A lot of bad, too. He closed his eyes against the thought.

The ship shuddered after the first jump and something akin to worry pinched at the corners of Nebula’s mouth.

“That didn’t sound great.” Tony observed.

“That’s because it wasn’t.” She informed him, pulling up readings as she spoke, hands flying across the digital keyboard. Tony simply watched.

“Anything I can do to help?” He asked, finally. Nebula eyed him for a moment, considering.

“Well, maybe one or two things.” She relented, finally.

* * *

It’s how they’d gotten there, fiddling with a busted fuel cell that for the life of him, Tony could not force to work any more than it already had. They had managed to make one more jump, but the ship had shuddered, seemingly heaving one last breath, before stopping, mid-space.

Now, they waited.

For what, he wasn’t really sure. Death, probably. Things looked pretty bleak right then and there.

Instead of worrying about the impending death that was likely to be wrought by starvation or cabin-fever, Tony had decided to teach Nebula finger football. He had a feeling, she hadn’t had much of a childhood. Another shared experience, he supposed.

When she’d won, she’d had a look of startled joy on her face and Tony couldn’t help but remember Peter, in the lab. The kid always looked surprised at his own inventions and discoveries, like he wasn’t really sure how smart he had been.

Had been.

Fuck.

Tony didn’t realize he was already thinking about the kid in past-tense and the realization stung. Nebula noticed his sudden shift in attitude and rested her chin on her hands across from him.

“I think we need to eat.” She’d announced, suddenly.

She’d gotten pretty good at figuring out whenever he needed a distraction, namely anytime he seemed to sink too deeply in his thoughts or any time after he left a message for Pepper on his busted helmet. He had no way of knowing if Pepper received the messages, but he couldn’t help trying. It was one of the few things that was keeping him sane, but at driving him entirely up the wall at the same time. So, Tony let her try and distract him.

Dwindling food sources weren’t exactly the best distraction, but with their ship dead in the water Tony couldn’t do much about it. Nebula had made him eat the last of the food the Guardians had had on their tiny little ship, pushing the bag gently into his hand when he’d tried to offer it to her.

“I can survive much longer without typical forms of energy than a Terran.” She’d assured him, eyes soft. Tony was too weak to argue.

He didn’t remember falling asleep after eating, but he did remember the cold air of the ship, and Nebula gently tucking some rough material around him to try and warm his cold skin before he sank back into the black of his nightmares.

Peter crumbling to dust in his arms haunted his dreams.

He dreamed that he was too far away from Pepper to grab her when she started to fade away. She’d looked at him, tears in her eyes, reaching her arms out to hold him, but anytime he got close enough to grab a part of her that looked solid, it turned to dust in his hands.

He dreamed that he was running through a long, dark hallway, where at the end there was a room, lit by bright fluorescent lights. In the room, there was a steel, surgical-like table, and on it, a body. The body was covered by a sheet, and when Tony pulled it back, Peter’s brown eyes stared back at him, lifeless. When he tried to wake the boy up, the bed suddenly jerked away from him, and Tony was left chasing after it as it wheeled down the hall, gaining momentum with every second while Tony felt like he was being pulled back by hands made of lead. 

He’d woken up in a cold sweat to a glow outside of his window, Peter’s blank, brown eyes haunting his vision. He’d blinked, squinted against the sudden light that filtered through the glass, lifting a hand to block the glow and startled a little at the sight of a woman floating in front of him.

“Well. I guess everyone was wrong. God is a woman. And death is not really a sweet release.” He murmured. The woman outside the glass smiled and Tony blacked out.

* * *

When he came to, Nebula informed him that the floating woman was, in fact, their rescuer. Her name was Carol, but she was more commonly known as Captain Marvel amongst the residents of this particular ring of planets.

“Space has more superheroes aside from the Guardians?” He’d asked and Carol had offered a little half-smile.

“Where are you from where there’s an abundance of them?” She’d asked in return and Tony shrugged.

“Earth, but this one,” he hooked a thumb over his shoulder at Nebula, who stood against the entryway, arms crossed over her chest, face unreadable, “calls it Terra.” Carol’s eyes darkened and her smile slipped off of her face.

“I haven’t been there in a long time. But. I think we’d better get you back as soon as possible.” Tony didn’t ask how he’d never heard of her if she’d been to Earth before and Carol seemed unwilling to offer an explanation. Instead, she told him how she was going to get them back. She’d pushed him down, scarred hands gentle. “Get some rest, Tony. I’ll have you home in no time.” Tony closed his eyes again and let the darkness pull at his consciousness once more.

* * *

The only reprieve Tony got from being back on earth was learning that Pepper, Rhodey, and Happy were alive. Steve had helped him out of the spaceship, and despite their fight, despite the words unsaid, despite the knowledge that this man, who was once his best friend, was now a stranger, he’d let him.

“I lost the kid.” He’d informed him. Steve’s expression read only regret.

“Tony. We all lost.” His voice was deep and warm, but it wasn’t what Tony wanted to hear. He let Steve lead him into the compound.

* * *

After his rant, the one that had made him collapse, Tony was forced into a hospital bed. Pepper sat by his side, holding his hand, her eyes wet with tears while the remaining Avengers talked about, whatever the hell it was they were talking about outside of the glass wall of his room. Tony met Pepper’s gaze and lifted a hand to wipe at the tears that dripped down her face.

“Hey, Pep. I’m alright.” She smiled, wobblily at his very weak assurance.

“I know you are Tony. That’s not why I’m crying.” Tony tilted his head and waited. Pepper never said things she didn’t mean with him, not anymore. They’d moved past that after their last break up and ever since they’d started planning their wedding. “Remember that dream you were having?” Tony blinked. He’d been having a lot of dreams, lately. She was going to have to be a bit more specific than that. “The one you were telling me about when we were running. Before Bruce and Strange showed up.” Tony’s eyes widened and Pepper nodded, once. “I was going to wait to tell you, when you’d first asked. But um, I think with the way things are going right now, that’s not really the best idea.”

Tony couldn’t help the little laugh of disbelief that escaped him, and Pepper couldn’t seem to help the one that escaped her own lips, unbidden.

When Rhodey found them, they were a mess of laughter, tears streaming out of both of their eyes, holding on to one another as if their lives depended on it.

* * *

No one had asked Tony to come help with the second battle against Thanos. He’d still been recovering at the time they’d gone.

He only learned the details later; Thanos had destroyed the stones. Thor had cut off Thanos’ head and that was that. There was no more hope in bringing back the snapped, and Tony couldn’t handle it. He hadn’t meant to shut down, but the thought of having lost Peter, his kid, permanently hurt more than he cared to admit.

After Steve, Nat and Nebula had turned up to give him the news, Tony had locked himself in the lab. Pepper had found him, curled up in a ball on the hard floor, unmoving. She didn’t say anything, but rather, sunk down beside him, curling around him and carding her fingers gently through his hair. When he’d finally processed the information enough to move, he turned over, and stared at the ceiling.

The same ceiling Peter had crawled on, numerous times.

He remembered the time the kid had scared him, dropping down randomly when Tony had entered, and almost giving him a heart attack.

Jesus.

It was almost too much, being here. In this place with its empty hallways. The other Avengers creeped around him like he was broken. He wasn’t the only one who’d lost someone, but they all acted like he was the most fragile. He couldn’t blame them, he was acting like a wounded animal anytime they approached him. Granted, he was wounded. And had lost something akin to a son.

Not akin.

Peter was his son. Maybe not biologically, but certainly in every other sense of the word.

“I think we need to move, Pepper.” She stilled, and then started to raise herself up. Tony reached out, stopping her. “I mean, move out of the compound.” Pepper’s eyes were sad, but she didn’t argue. “It’s got too many memories here…To many things that remind me of the kid. Too much pain.” He shrugged, not really sure he was making much sense, but as Pepper’s arms circled him, he knew it was going to be one of the only ways he was going to get some form of closure.

* * *

Five years was a long time to mourn someone. But Tony had a feeling, you didn’t ever really stop mourning the people you loved.

Life was much more different without Peter.

Tony was much more different without Peter.

He’d learned a lot about himself in the years that had followed The Decimation. For one, he was a better father than he’d expected himself to be. Of course, he’d had a little bit of practice with Peter, but he’d made a lot of mistakes with the kid. Mistakes he wasn’t keen on repeating with Morgan.

“Hey, daddy.” Morgan looked up at him from his spot on the bar stool and he smiled down at her, ruffling her hair with his free hand.

“What’s up, pumpkin?” He asked, dropping a kiss on her head, only noticing the picture frame in her hands after he’d lifted his head. “Whatcha got there?” He got down from his seat and settled into a crouch next to her, and Morgan held the picture out for him.

“Who’s this?” She asked. Tony’s heart constricted.

“Oh. Um.” He cleared his throat, tears blurring his vision temporarily. “That’s Peter. He’s…he’s your big brother.” Morgan’s eyebrows drew together, confusion written clearly across her face.

“How come I’ve never met him, then?” She asked. Tony sighed and finally plopped down, crossing his legs and pulling Morgan onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her to hold the picture.

“Do you remember when Goldie died?” He asked. About a year ago, he and Pepper had gone to a little fair with Morgan and they’d won a goldfish. Morgan had been ecstatic and Tony, being the extra-ass bitch he is, had gone all out on getting a tank with colorful rocks, special food, and plenty of decorations for their newest addition. Morgan would sit for hours, watching the fish, whom she had aptly dubbed “Goldie” float around, swimming aimlessly through the water. She became so attached that Tony and Pepper swore that when the thing eventually died, they would just replace it with a lookalike. Unfortunately, Morgan had been the one to find Goldie, belly-up a few months later and needless to say, she was devastated. But, it had been a good introduction to death for her.

Tony was glad it was the way they’d been able to introduce her to the realities of the world. She’d been one of the few kids who were born AS. After-Snap, as everyone called it. Tony and Pepper had kept her circle of people relatively small. The remaining Avengers knew her, but only Natasha and Nebula visited enough to be dubbed “Aunt Nat” and “Aunt Nebby.” Of course, Rhodey practically lived here, but everyone else was pretty content to keep their distance. Some wounds hadn’t fully healed for either parties. Not that Tony entirely blamed Steve.

“So, Peter died?” Morgan interrupted his train off thought and Tony glanced back down at his sweet, curious daughter. Her large brown eyes looked up at him, so trusting.

“It’s complicated, but yeah. Peter died.” It was the first time Tony had admitted to Peter dying. The admission felt wrong, like hot lead burning his throat, even as he said the words. Morgan’s tiny fingers traced Peter’s face in the frame and Tony blinked away tears.

“I wish I could have met him.” She announced. “Can you tell me about him?” Tony drew in a sharp breath. It was common knowledge that Peter was an off-limits topic. But something about Morgan asking seemed to break the damn in him.

“Um, sure, sweetie.” Tony closed his eyes, thinking back. “He was incredibly smart, Morgoona. Like, maybe smarter than me.” Morgan blinked up at him, eyes owl-like. “He used to come to the lab every weekend with me, and we’d work on his suit.” Morgan quirked an eyebrow at him and Tony chuckled. “He had a secret identity. I guess that doesn’t really matter now. Um, he –” Tony chuckled again, “He named himself Spider-Man because he was bitten by a radioactive spider.” Morgan giggled.

“Is that why you don’t ever let Mommy kill spiders when she finds one in the house?” Morgan questioned and Tony nodded.

“That’s right, little miss. Spiders were Peter’s best friends. Honestly, they remind me of the kid every time I see one.” Morgan nodded, settling back in his arms, tucking her head under his chin and closing her eyes.

“What else?” She asked.

“Well, when I first found out about Peter, he was running around in these awful homemade jammies…”

“Like the ones Nanna made me for Christmas?”

“Worse!”

And that’s how Pepper found them, an hour later, laughing about Peter accidentally making too much web-fluid and getting himself stuck to the table of Tony’s lab.

“Hey, little miss. I think it’s past your bed-time.” Pepper teased, settling down with them, Morgan crawling into her lap. She nestled her head into Pepper’s neck, arms wrapping tight around her neck and Pepper smiled softly, kissing the crown of her daughters head.

They tucked Morgan into bed, shortly after, both of them standing at her doorway and watching as she breathed, a reassurance every parent needed to be able to sleep at night.

“I miss him, Pep.” Tony finally whispered, into the quiet night.

“Me too, Tony.” She circles an arm around him, resting her head gently on his shoulder as they watched Morgan sleep.

“I owe it to him to try and get him back.” Pepper looked up at him.

“I knew you couldn’t give it up.” She murmured, lifting her head to press a soft kiss to his lips. Tony sighed against her. “You know, we were really lucky.”

“I don’t even know if I can fix it.” He whispered.

“You’ve never been one to back down from a challenge.” Pepper intoned, biting her lip. “Just promise that you’ll come home.” Tony’s heart stopped at the insinuation that he’d leave her or Morgan behind. Just the idea of two of the people he loved most in this world, without him made him hesitate. Pepper seemed to sense that and cupped his cheeks, turning to face him. “You need to do this, Tony. You won’t get any peace if you don’t.” She kissed him again, a seal.

“Okay.” He breathed. “I’m going to get the kid back. And, I’m going to come home. I promise."

**Author's Note:**

> in case you hadn't gathered from the collection title, we're ignoring endgame. In my theory, Tony does do the snap but he doesn't die from it. It just...doesn't happen, sorry ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ not sure exactly what happens once Tony decides to get Peter back, but I might continue this at some point. Maybe. No promises. Any way, I hope you enjoyed this, lovelies. Let me know what you thought in the comments below and thank you for reading.


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